Israel

On Thursday night, every Jewish WhatsApp group lit up with horrific videos coming out of Amsterdam.  A roving mob of Arabs carried out a coordinated attack on Jews in what amounted to a pogrom.  This was eerily timed around the anniversary of Kristallnacht and is a shocking reminder of Europe’s dark history and its fragile present. 

In the years following the development of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, Israeli military control was ensured by constructing military roads through the territory, subjecting residents to checkpoints between population centers. Upon returning to Gaza following the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel, security corridors were brought back on the Egyptian border and south of Gaza City.

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations of prominent Israel supporters Pete Hegseth, Rep. Elise Stefanik, and Mike Huckabee respectively as Defense Secretary, US Ambassador to the UN, and US Ambassador to Israel, brought out cheers among my colleagues at this newspaper. They are familiar faces that we’ve seen at pro-Israel fundraising dinners, on missions to Israel, and in the news.

For the Los Angeles-born Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, appointed as a Jewish spiritual leader in Montenegro in 2017, his commitment to espousing halachic principles to an increasingly curious and growing community nestled in the Balkans remains inspiring.

(Nov. 26, 2024 / JNS) U.S. President Joe Biden announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati had agreed to a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire deal on Tuesday.

This Pesach, my wife Atara and I had the great z’chus to spend Yom Tov in Eretz Yisrael with our children and grandchildren in Beitar. What made the trip even more meaningful was the bris milah of our newest grandson, Mordechai Chaitovsky – born to our children Dovi and Chana Chaitovsky – held at the home of Mashgiach HaGaon Rav Don Segal. The celebration was a moment of deep simchah and profound hakaras ha’tov to Hashem for the gift of family and the brachah of continuity.