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Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis today in Jerusalem.

The Trump administration is recalling 48 U.S. ambassadors from diplomatic posts in multiple countries, according to U.S. officials. A senior State Department official said the move is a routine step taken by administrations, with ambassadors expected to support and carry out the administration’s policies. The countries affected include Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, and […]

The holiday travel rush is underway, with TSA predicting record-breaking crowds of nearly 3 million travelers at airports nationwide.

Sec. Kristi Noem announces DHS will give illegal migrants a $3,000 holiday stipend if they self-deport by December 31.

Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Russian General Staff’s training department, was killed early Monday morning after an improvised explosive device (IED) attached to his car detonated in southern Moscow, Russian investigators said. Authorities said the investigation is examining a possible Ukrainian connection.

Kerry Kennedy escalated her criticism of President Donald Trump, publicly calling for his name to be removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts once he leaves office. In posts shared on X and Instagram, Kennedy pledged dramatic action to reverse the decision.

“Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters of that building,” she wrote.

She followed up with another post inviting supporters to join her effort, adding, “But I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in? Apply for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!.”

The naming decision has drawn sharp criticism from several Democrats and members of the Kennedy family. Among those objecting was JFK’s niece Maria Shriver, along with multiple Democratic lawmakers, all of whom argue that placing Trump’s name on the building violates federal law.

“The Kennedy Center was named by law. To change the name would require a revision of that 1964 law,” Ray Smock, a former House historian, told the Associated Press. “The Kennedy Center board is not a lawmaking entity. Congress makes laws.”

Congress designated the performing arts complex as a living memorial to President Kennedy in 1964, a year after his assassination. The statute explicitly bars the board of trustees from transforming the center into a memorial for anyone else or placing another individual’s name on the exterior of the building.

Despite those objections, Trump’s name was added after the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees — reportedly selected by Trump — voted unanimously in favor of the change. Officials at the Kennedy Center said the vote was intended to acknowledge Trump’s efforts to revitalize the institution.

Kennedy expanded her attack a day earlier with a separate post on X sharply criticizing Trump and his administration. She wrote: “President Trump and his administration have spent the past year repressing free expression, targeting artists, journalists, and comedians, and erasing the history of Americans whose contributions made our nation better and more just.”

She contrasted that record with the legacy of her uncle, writing: “President Kennedy proudly stood for justice, peace, equality, dignity, diversity, and compassion for those who suffer. President Trump stands in opposition to these values, and his name should not be placed alongside President Kennedy’s.”

Kerry Kennedy is the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, who served as a U.S. senator and attorney general. Her brother, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., currently serves as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration and has not commented publicly on the controversy surrounding the Kennedy Center’s name.

{Matzav.com}

Ukraine’s military intelligence (GUR) claims it sabotaged a Russian airbase near Lipetsk, disabling two fighter jets, an Su-30 and an Su-27, by setting them on fire inside a hangar.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Damascus, along with a delegation that included Defense Minister Yasar Guler and intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin.

The IDF has released footage of one of the two separate drone strikes yesterday in the southern Lebanon town of Yater, targeting Hezbollah terrorists. According to the IDF, one strike killed a Hezbollah terrorist involved in restoring the group’s infrastructure. Lebanese authorities report the second strike wounded one person.

SPEAKER JOHNSON: If we lose the House majority, the radical left will impeach President Trump.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted a series of ballistic missile tests across multiple locations in Iran today, including Mashhad, Khorramabad, Kermanshah, Mahabad, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran. Iran’s Fars News Agency confirmed that the launches are part of a large-scale missile exercise. Israeli officials have warned their U.S. counterparts that Tehran could use the drills […]

SCARY SIGHT: Two men were left dangling at the peak of a 130-foot drop after a roller coaster malfunctioned in Texas, suspended at a terrifying 90-degree angle facing straight toward the ground. A frantic relative called 911 as the riders hung there for nearly an hour before they were safely brought down.

At least five people were injured after a four-alarm fire tore through a home on Humboldt Street in Brooklyn early Monday morning. Fire officials say the blaze erupted around 2 a.m. on the first floor and escalated to four alarms within an hour. Nearly 200 FDNY firefighters and EMS personnel responded. Two civilians were transported […]

The Venezuelan military has begun distributing rifles to civilians in working-class neighborhoods The official purpose is to organize local militias capable of “forming an armed resistance in the event of a foreign invasion.”

A growing trend in recent years of placing handwritten notes with personal requests inside or beneath the Chanukah menorah—particularly on Zos Chanukah—is coming under sharp criticism from rabbinic figures, who say the practice has no source, no tradition, and no basis in Torah.

The practice, widely circulated each year on social media and various websites, claims that one should write a note beginning with the verse “Min hameitzar karasi Kah, anani bamerchav Kah,” add one’s name and mother’s name, list personal requests, and then place the note in the menorah after the candles go out. According to the claim, the note is left there until the following Chanukah, when it is opened to see whether the requests were fulfilled.

Rabbinic authorities say the so-called segulah is entirely fabricated.

Rav Chaim Fuchs, head of the Segulas Emes Institute, addressed the phenomenon this week, calling the practice “nonsensical” and stressing that it has no connection to authentic Jewish tradition. He said the idea was invented only in recent years and falsely presented as a spiritual tool. “If a person asks Hashem sincerely, Hashem can answer,” he said, emphasizing that the power lies in tefillah itself, not in placing slips of paper in ritual objects.

Concerns have grown as variations of the practice have emerged, including suggestions to place notes in Pesach utensils after the Yom Tov or even inside the oil cups of the menorah from night to night. Rabbinic figures warn that such trends risk shifting people’s faith away from tefillah and toward superstition, creating the impression that salvation comes from a mechanical act rather than a relationship with Hashem.

Years ago, Rav Reuven Zakaim, head of the Zichron Yaakov Beis Medrash for Halachah and Dayanus, wrote a detailed critique of the practice. He said he researched the matter extensively and found no mention of such a segulah in any authoritative sefer, nor any record of it being taught or endorsed by recognized Torah leaders. “It is entirely new,” he wrote, adding that it was unheard of throughout Jewish history, even dating back to the miracle of the oil itself.

Rav Zakaim acknowledged that while there may not be a formal halachic prohibition against placing a note in a menorah, the practice should not be attributed any spiritual significance. He warned against confusing the essentials of avodas Hashem with practices that lack any authentic source. He cited the irony noted by earlier gedolim that if mitzvos themselves were written up as segulos, people might be more meticulous in observing them.

The issue was also addressed this past week by writer Reb Dovid Daman in the Hebrew Mishpacha magazine. He expressed sympathy for those who followed the practice last year and were left disappointed when their hopes were not realized. Rather than doubling down on an invented ritual, he urged readers to replace it with meaningful tefillah, suggesting the recitation of the entire Sefer Tehillim on Zos Chanukah.

“I don’t promise salvations,” he wrote. “By Hashem, no one stands with a stopwatch. But Tehillim—especially the full sefer recited without interruption—is always a powerful and holy segulah. Tefillos do not return empty.”

Daman said the trend highlights how quickly unfounded practices can spread, especially among people searching desperately for yeshuah. He recounted being offered yet another “new segulah” this year involving placing a request note inside a cup of oil, calling it further proof that such ideas proliferate without restraint.

{Matzav.com}

The leaders of Denmark and Greenland insisted Monday that the U.S. won’t take over Greenland and demanded respect for their territorial integrity after President Donald Trump announced the appointment of a special envoy to Greenland. Trump’s announcement on Sunday that Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry would be the U.S. special envoy prompted a new flare-up of […]

Attorney Shlomo Hadad, who represents many of the Chareidi bochurim and avreichim arrested for “draft dodging,” wrote a disturbing report about one of the bochurim he visited, who was severely injured by the police despite the fact that he did not resist his arrest. Hadad wrote: “My first meeting with Yitzchak Revivo was not just […]

The Belzer Rebbe addressed the challenges facing Torah learners during his Seudah Shlishis on Shabbos Chanukah, speaking before tens of thousands of chassidim who spent Shabbos in his presence.

In his divrei Torah, the Rebbe reflected on the current period as one of hester — spiritual concealment — and spoke about the decrees directed against those devoted to Torah study. Drawing on the parsha, he explained that Yosef HaTzaddik, during his exile in Mitzrayim, laid the spiritual groundwork that enabled later generations to endure exile. That preparation, the Rebbe said, empowered Klal Yisroel to survive not only the Egyptian exile but future exiles as well.

“Even in our times, everything is in concealment,” the Rebbe said. “There is an inner exile and an outer exile, similar to what existed in Mitzrayim. Then, Klal Yisroel was redeemed through Aharon HaKohen and Moshe Rabbeinu. Today as well, the power of Torah is what sustains us, and in the end, Hashem will help, and it will become clear that it is only the Torah learned by Bnei Yisroel in exile that keeps them standing.”

The Rebbe further connected these themes to the miracle of Chanukah, noting that even when Klal Yisroel was in a lowly and weakened state — akin to exile, despite the Beis Hamikdash still standing — it was the Kohanim who elevated the nation and drew them closer to Hashem.

“So too in our exile,” he said, “the hand of Hashem stands by Bnei Yisroel, and He illuminates the darkness, just as at the time of the miracle, through the study of Torah Shebichsav and Torah Shebaal Peh.”

{Matzav.com}

Podcaster Tucker Carlson has been named “Antisemite of the Year” by StopAntisemitism, citing his repeated use of a massive media platform to normalize, amplify, and legitimize antisemitic figures and narratives. The designation follows months of backlash, particularly over Carlson’s October interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who has promoted conspiracy theories about […]