News

World War I broke out on Tish’ah B’Av 5674 (1914) and lasted until 7 Kislev 5679 (November 11, 1918). The “Great War,” as it was known, pitted the armies of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and Japan (the Allied Powers). The Allies were joined after 1917 by the United States. The four years of the Great War saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction, thanks to grueling trench warfare and the introduction of modern weaponry such as machine guns, tanks, and chemical weapons. By the time World War I ended in the defeat of the Central Powers in November 1918, more than nine million soldiers had been killed and 21 million more civilians wounded.

Chazal teach: “Hovei mis’avek b’afar ragleihem” (Avos 1:4) — Attach yourself to the dust of the feet of Talmidei Chachamim.

The Zohar states that 974 generations of souls were reincarnated in Lavan’s sheep. Before Yaakov’s arrival at Lavan’s home, they were trapped by the Sitra Achra. Yaakov rescued these souls by implanting emunah into them, in the form of the rods that he placed in the water, and when the sheep gazed at the rods, the souls inside them were transformed with purity.

Soon after the one-year commemoration of the deadly October 7 attacks in Israel, one man conducted 38 interviews focusing on the rebuilding efforts of the Israeli communities in the Gaza envelope. Among those he met was a woman named Dafnah from Kibbutz Re’im. She had been the cultural director of the kibbutz and one of the organizers of the Nova Festival. Touring the kibbutz, she showed him her charred house and the room in which her mother and children were found murdered together. She is the lone survivor of her family.

Raised in Brooklyn, Rochel grew up appreciating that she was Jewish, and that was about it. Her only connection to Orthodox Judaism came through deeply religious relatives who, later in life, had a profound influence on her. After meeting her husband at Harper College, their journey together led them around the world. In 1971, after being married for seven years, Rochel and her husband were living in Taiwan due to a Fulbright Fellowship, and it was there that their lives took an unexpected turn.

On May 3, 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin hobbled into a crowded Knesset chamber, tense with expectancy. He was in pain, recovering from a severe hip injury, and it was with heavy, purposeful steps that he arrived to deliver his El Al speech. He began quietly, factually, declaring that the government had finally decided to halt all El Al flights on Shabbos and festivals – a revelation that sent leftist eyes glaring and hatred flashing in the public gallery where the El Al union men sat.