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A frightening antisemitic attack nearly ended in tragedy when a group of frum teenage boys in Melbourne were chased by a vehicle whose occupants attempted to ram them, screaming Nazi slurs and threats, in an incident that left the local Jewish community deeply shaken.

The episode unfolded yesterday in the St. Kilda East neighborhood, just a short distance—approximately 100 meters—from the Adas Yisroel shul, a landmark that itself was targeted in a Molotov cocktail arson attack more than a year ago.

Footage from nearby security cameras, later circulated by local media, shows the boys standing at a crosswalk when a white SUV pulled up close to them, drawing their attention.

Sensing danger, the boys immediately fled, sprinting across the street in an effort to get away. Moments later, the video shows the vehicle executing a sudden U-turn and accelerating toward them, narrowly missing one of the teens.

During the chaos, one of the boys succeeded in capturing the vehicle’s license plate. Members of the Jewish community later reported that the SUV had been stolen.

Chaim Klein, whose son was among the teens and who is part of the Adas Yisroel kehillah, recounted what his child told him after the ordeal. He said the attackers yelled “Heil Hitler,” made a Nazi salute, and issued stabbing threats as they pursued the boys for several minutes.

“They were forced to run and hide, while the passengers chased them in the car, searched for them and tried to drive towards them,” Klein told the local Herald Sun. “This was a deliberate and targeted act of intimidation and hatred that put young lives in immediate danger and left the community shaken.”

{Matzav.com}

Australia’s parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved sweeping new hate crime and firearms legislation in response to the Chanukah terror attack on Bondi Beach in which gunmen targeting Jewish Australians murdered 15 people. The bills cleared both the House of Representatives and the Senate just five weeks after the ISIS-inspired massacre at the iconic Sydney beach, […]

On his Monday night show, conservative commentator Sean Hannity floated the idea that the United States should offer $100,000 to every resident of Greenland as part of President Donald Trump’s push to bring the vast Arctic territory under U.S. control — a proposal that would cost roughly $5.6 billion based on Greenland’s population of about […]

BREAKING: US forces in Caribbean seize seventh sanctioned oil tanker linked to Venezuela.

LAKEWOOD: An individual believed to be attempting a hit job on the Lakewood community visited BMG today – and was promptly removed by security for trespassing. A separate individual did the same – successfully – in Kiryas Yoel recently.

President Trump on the last remaining slain hostage still being held by Hamas, Ran Givili: “We think we know where it is.”

Reporter: Is a military option still on the table (with Iran)?” Trump: They were going to hang, I think, 837 people. And they didn’t hang anybody. So we’re just going to have to see what happens with Iran.

Reporter: Do you want your Board of Peace to replace the UN? Trump: Well, it might. The UN should have settled every one of the wars I settled. UN should continue because the potential is so great.

Dear Matzav Inbox,

Every so often, a familiar wave of anxiety ripples through the community, as it did today. A blogger is coming. An outsider is asking questions. Someone with a camera, a notebook, or a following wants to see Lakewood — and suddenly the instinct is to retreat, to warn, to clamp down, to treat the visit as a threat rather than an opportunity.

Why?

Why are we so frightened of being seen?

If someone wants to come to Lakewood, let them come. And instead of scrambling behind the scenes or whispering about damage control, why don’t we do the most obvious, intelligent, and self-respecting thing possible: show them who we actually are.

Show them Bais Medrash Govoah, not as a buzzword or a caricature, but as the largest Talmudic academy in the country. Let them see thousands of young men learning with seriousness, discipline, and purpose, from early morning until late at night. Let them understand that this is not some fringe phenomenon, but a sustained commitment to Torah that defines an entire town.

Show them the community that exists around it — families raising children with values, schools educating tens of thousands of students, shuls full on weekday mornings. Show them neighborhoods that function, systems that work, and a population that is invested in the future of its children.

Take them down Avenue of the States. Show them the businesses, the commerce, the jobs, the storefronts, the offices, and the economic activity that supports not only our own community but the broader township as well. Let them see that Lakewood is not a burden, but a contributor, socially, economically, and civically.

And then show them what almost never gets photographed.

Show them the chesed. The charities. The volunteer organizations. The endless web of quiet generosity that steps in long before government agencies do — meals delivered without fanfare, funds raised overnight for families in crisis, medical advocacy, Bikur Cholim, gemachs of every kind. Show them the infrastructure of responsibility that exists because we believe in taking care of our own.

What exactly are we afraid they’ll uncover?

If we believe in what we are building here — and we should — then fear is not a strategy. Silence is not strength. And treating every outsider as an enemy only guarantees that the story will be written without us.

There will always be people who come with preconceived notions. There will always be critics who arrive determined to find fault. But hiding doesn’t disarm them. It empowers them. When we refuse to engage, we leave the field open to ignorance, rumor, and narrative-building by those who don’t know us and don’t care to.

We don’t need to posture or perform. We don’t need talking points or defensive statements. We need confidence…calm, intelligent confidence. We need to answer questions honestly, clearly, and like mentchen who are comfortable in their own skin.

Outsiders will talk whether we invite them or not. Bloggers will write whether we cooperate or not. The only choice we have is whether the picture they paint is based on speculation — or reality.

Lakewood is not perfect. No community is. But it is real, vibrant, productive, and deeply rooted in values that have sustained our people for centuries. That is not something to hide from. It is something to stand behind.

Stop being scared. Stop acting as if visibility is a threat. It isn’t.

Open the door. Walk them through. Let them see the truth …. not the version whispered about by people who have never set foot here, but the one lived every day by tens of thousands of families.

If we have nothing to hide, then we have nothing to fear.

Sincerely,

Y. B. H.

To submit a letter to appear on Matzav.com, email MatzavInbox@gmail.com

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The UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem, near Ammunition Hill, was demolished on Tuesday morning by representatives of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), accompanied by police forces. The demolition was the culmination of the government’s advancement of a law in October 2024 barring UNRWA from operating inside the country and prohibiting Israeli officials from having contact with […]

Dozens of beaches along Australia’s east coast, including in Sydney, closed after four shark attacks in two days.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said he expects GDP to exceed 5% in the first quarter of 2026.

The search for dozens of people reported missing after a massive fire at a shopping plaza in Pakistan’s largest city entered a fourth day Tuesday, with the death toll rising to 28 after five more bodies were recovered, officials said. Rescuers reached some of the most badly damaged sections in the multistory Gul Plaza in […]

On the eve of the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, new figures spotlight the scale of the administration’s immigration enforcement, even as Trump publicly praised what he described as a year of major accomplishments. An analysis highlighted by The New York Times reports that roughly 540,000 immigrants have been removed during Trump’s first year back in office.

According to the breakdown, about 230,000 individuals were arrested and deported from within the United States, approximately 270,000 were expelled after being caught at the border, and around 40,000 opted to accept financial assistance to leave voluntarily under a self-deportation program.

Taken together, those categories put the total number of removals at an estimated 540,000 since Trump returned to the White House.

“The number of deportations from interior arrests since Mr. Trump took office is already higher than the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration,” the Times analysis read. “It offers the clearest measure of the impact of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown and expansive efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to deport millions of people.
“At the same time, the number of people trying to cross the Southwest border has fallen to record lows. As a result, far fewer people were arrested and deported from the border than in the preceding few years.”

Separate data released by Department of Homeland Security in December pointed to even larger overall numbers, stating that more than 2.5 million immigrants had departed the country amid the administration’s enforcement push. That total included an estimated 1.9 million self-deportations alongside more than 622,000 formal deportations.

“In less than a year, President Trump has delivered some of the most historic and consequential achievements in presidential history — and this administration is just getting started,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making America safe again and putting the American people first. In record-time we have secured the border, taken the fight to cartels, and arrested thousands upon thousands of criminal illegal aliens. Though 2025 was historic, we won’t rest until the job is done.”

The DHS summary also laid out several headline indicators, including a steep year-over-year drop in border crossings, a sharp decline in daily apprehensions at the Southwest border, seven consecutive months in which Border Patrol released no migrants into the country, and a total number of apprehensions far below averages recorded during the prior administration.

Republican leaders echoed that message. “Just one year into his second term, President Trump has delivered more results for the American people than any president in history,” said Joe Gruters, chair of the Republican National Committee. “He’s reversing the damage of Biden’s far-left agenda by bringing prices down, unleashing American energy, securing the border, and rebuilding our military.
“Families are finally getting relief, our communities are safer, and America is respected again on the world stage. President Trump is putting America first every single day, and this is only the beginning — the best is still ahead.”

Independent analyses have pointed to a concurrent decline in the population living in the country without legal status. A report from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that number fell by roughly 360,000 over the past year, while research from the Brookings Institution suggested the overall foreign-born population may have dropped by as many as 295,000.

These developments come amid demonstrations in Minnesota, where leftist “agitators” have protested Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

“In Minnesota, there is too much media attention on ICE, who have removed some of the worst murderers and criminals in the World, people let into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden’s horrendous Open Border Policy, and not enough attention paid to the staggering sums of money stolen from the State by corrupt Minnesota politicians!” Trump wrote Monday in a Truth Social post.

{Matzav.com}

A little-known U.S. Navy base on the Chesapeake Bay may have played a far more extraordinary role than previously understood, according to a new report that claims an unidentified craft of “unknown origin” has been secretly stored and studied there for decades as part of classified military programs. The base, Naval Air Station Patuxent River […]

Guards from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces abandoned a camp Tuesday in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to the Islamic State group, and the Syrian military said that allowed the detainees to escape. Hours later, the Syrian government and the SDF announced a new four-day truce after a previous ceasefire between government forces […]

President Donald Trump this afternoon that U.S. intelligence agencies believe they have identified where the body of Israeli soldier St.-Sgt.-Maj. Ran Gvili is being held in the Gaza Strip, speaking during a press conference in Washington, DC.

“We got the 28 hostages; they have one left, that we think we know where it is. Amazing,” Trump said.

Gvili is believed to be the final Israeli hostage still in Gaza. He was taken on October 7 during fierce fighting at Kibbutz Alumim, where he was battling Hamas terrorists as part of the IDF’s Golani Brigade.

In a December interview with Ma’ariv, Gvili’s mother, Talik, shared information she said was based on intelligence assessments. “The intelligence is that Ran was not killed on the spot,” she said.

“We know he was wounded in the heroic battle at Kibbutz Alumim, hit by a bullet in his hand and shoulder area. Intelligence believes he didn’t receive medical treatment and therefore didn’t survive,” she added.

{Matzav.com}

Habochur Naftali Tzvi Kramer z”l, an 18-year-old talmid from the Satmar Yeshiva in Komemiyus, was killed in a horrific traffic accident while returning from a protest against post-mortem examinations.

Naftali Tzvi, a resident of Yerushalayim, was struck at the entrance to Moshav Komemiyus as he was making his way back to the yeshiva together with fellow bochurim. He passed away just weeks before his 18th birthday.

According to details released for publication, the accident occurred on Route 3533. Witnesses reported that a Metropoline bus transporting chareidi girls was traveling at high speed. Students walking along the side of the road stated that the bus struck Naftali Tzvias they were proceeding together on the shoulder. However, authorities have not established clear evidence that the driver acted intentionally.

Askani Shimon Shisha, together with ZAKA volunteers, has been working to ensure that the body is released without being transferred to the forensic institute.

Naftali Tzvihad returned from a protest opposing autopsies, which he attended in accordance with the directives of his rabbanim.

Naftali Tzvi was born in Yerushalayim on 27 Shevat 5768 to his father, Reb Yissachar Dov Kramer, a respected Satmar chassid, and his mother, Mrs. Bracha Beila Kramer, daughter of Rav Menashe Gottlieb. He was raised in a home steeped in Torah and chassidus.

He studied at the Satmar Talmud Torah in Yerushalayim, continued on to the Yeitev Lev Satmar Yeshiva L’tzeirim, and later joined the Satmar Yeshiva Gedolah, Yeitev Lev D’Rabbeinu Yoel, in Komemiyus.

Friends described him as an elevated and refined young man, devoted to avodas Hashem and meticulous in his conduct. “He would spend a full hour preparing himself before tefillah, with seriousness and focus,” one friend said. “He was noble, gentle, and always greeted others with a warm smile.”

Just a month ago, Naftali Tzviwas seen davening Shacharis alongside Rav Chaim Tzvi Teitelbaum, son of the Satmar Rebbe, during a visit to the yeshiva for the inauguration of a new mikvah.

Yehi zichro boruch.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump is escalating his pressure campaign on Europe, threatening to slap 200% tariffs on French wine and champagne after France declined to join his newly created Board of Peace. France was among dozens of countries invited last week to join the board, which was initially conceived to oversee postwar governance and reconstruction in […]

Rabbi Moshe Itach, a father of three who heads an educational framework for children with high-functioning autism, described the terrifying hours he endured after learning that his young son had been present at the Yerushalayim daycare where a fatal incident unfolded. Speaking with Kan Moreshet, he recounted how the family struggled to locate their child amid widespread confusion.

“My wife called me in the middle of the day to say there had been an incident at our son’s nursery and that six children had been taken to hospital. We didn’t know who had taken them, where they were taken, or what condition our child was in,” he said. For roughly two hours, the family went from hospital to hospital across the city, desperate for answers.

“Those were two hours of complete uncertainty. You hear rumors, people are talking about infants in serious condition, and you don’t know where your child is. In the end, we discovered he was at Shaare Zedek. Thank God, he’s fine,” Itach added, expressing visible relief.

Even as he spoke of his own son’s safety, Itach emphasized the broader national grief that followed the incident. “Yesterday, Klal Yisroel lost two children. It’s an unimaginable tragedy. It’s hard even to think about it. There are no words that can comfort parents who have lost an infant,” he said.

Responding to criticism directed at the daycare’s employees, Itach said he felt compelled to speak up on their behalf. “I know the head teacher, the caregivers, and the assistants. These are devoted women who chose this profession out of a sense of mission – not out of necessity. My son was happy to go to the nursery and happy to come home. That is not something to be taken for granted.”

He also pointed to structural problems that place families and caregivers in an untenable position. “The state makes staffing difficult, the pay is low, and parents – especially young couples studying in yeshiva – are often forced to choose between cost and safety. It’s an impossible situation,” he said.

Concluding his remarks, Itach called on parents to engage in honest self-examination. “Every father and mother needs to ask themselves: Where am I sending my child in the morning? Is this a place I can truly trust? This isn’t about blame. It’s about responsibility.”

{Matzav.com}