Tuesday, July 7, 2026
NYC First Lady skipped America’s 250th birthday for European Islamic retreat
As Americans across the country marked the nation’s 250th anniversary over the July 4 weekend, New York City First Lady Rama Duwaji spent the holiday at an Islamic “spiritual wellness” retreat on the Spanish island of Mallorca, drawing sharp criticism from elected officials and renewing attention on the political views of New York City’s first family.
According to the New York Post, Duwaji departed for Spain ahead of the Independence Day celebrations and was photographed waiting at a United Airlines gate before boarding her flight.
The trip quickly became a flashpoint. Queens Councilwoman Joann Ariola told the Post, “Nothing says ‘America 250’ quite like skipping the celebration for a Mediterranean vacation. I am not surprised because she has made her hatred for America very evident.”
Staten Island Councilman Frank Morano also criticized the timing of the trip.
“It’s disappointing that the first lady chose to be overseas instead of taking part in one of the biggest civic events our city and country will mark this year,” Morano said.
Conservative commentator Arynne Wexler, who published the airport photos on X, mocked the contrast between the mayor’s public messaging and his wife’s travel plans.
Mamdani denounces pro-Israel lobby group as 'monsters'
“Funny how when Zohran Mamdani was telling New Yorkers to lower their AC his wife Rama Duwaji was boarding a flight to party in Mallorca,” Wexler wrote. She added, “Reminder that I can’t tag her because she deleted her account after her insanely offensive tweets were discovered. Champagne socialists.”
Duwaji has faced repeated scrutiny over her online activity and activism. Earlier this year, reports resurfaced showing she had “liked” a number of pro-Palestinian social media posts following the October 7 Hamas massacre.
She also illustrated a literary work included in a collection edited by Palestinian activist Susan Abulhawa, who has made inflammatory statements about Jews and Israel. After years-old social media posts containing racial, homophobic, and other offensive remarks resurfaced, Duwaji deleted her X account.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has consistently defended his wife as a private citizen with no role in his administration, noting that some of her social media activity predated both their marriage and his mayoral campaign.
Mamdani himself has remained at the center of controversy over his positions on Israel and the Jewish community.
He has refused to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” arguing that it should not automatically be interpreted as a call for violence, while continuing to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and repeatedly accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
Shortly before the July 4 holiday, Mamdani also came under fire after referring to members of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC as “monsters” while discussing the influence of money in politics, comments that drew condemnation from Jewish leaders and elected officials.
The first lady’s absence from America’s 250th birthday celebration, combined with the mayor’s recent rhetoric and the couple’s record on Israel-related issues, added another chapter to the ongoing debate surrounding New York City’s new first family.
Stay Home RAHM EMANUEL !
POLITICO reports that Rahm Emanuel is coming to Israel this week to deliver what is being framed as a major warning: unconditional U.S. support for Israel is over unless Israel returns to the old “two-state solution” track.
Good.
Let’s have this conversation clearly.
Israel is a sovereign state. Not a project of Washington consultants. Not a branch office of the Democratic Party. Not a client state waiting for Obama-era officials to fly in and lecture us about our own survival.
Israelis already tested the fantasy they are trying to revive.
We gave land. We left Gaza. We empowered “moderates.” We were told peace was around the corner.
Then came rockets, tunnels, terror armies, and October 7.
The Israeli public has moved on because reality forced us to move on. The far-left diplomatic worldview Rahm Emanuel is bringing with him barely exists here anymore, because Israelis are the ones who paid the price for it in blood.
America is a great ally. But Jewish sovereignty is not conditional. Israel does not need lectures from former officials who helped build the foreign policy illusions that collapsed in our faces. We need allies who understand the Middle East as it is, not as they wish it still was in a 1990s peace-process seminar.
Israel will decide Israel’s future. Not Rahm Emanuel. Not Obama nostalgia. Not anyone who thinks the Jewish state must trade security for applause.
Crazy but true, it's the Democrats trying to stop the Turks from getting fighter planes
Yes. Democrats are trying to stop a Republican President from further arming the Muslim Brotherhood.
— Dumisani Washington (@DumisaniTemsgen) July 6, 2026
Republicans acting like this isn’t happening is COVID-era-level gaslighting. https://t.co/YSc9Q6T2xo
Controversial Streamer Clavicular Announces Trip to Israel, Angering Former Friend and Islamist Sneako
The announcement drew immediate criticism from his former friend, streamer Sneako, who has expressed Islamist views.
"This is a mistake," Sneako said.
The reaction is especially notable given the pair's past.
Earlier this year, Clavicular and Sneako appeared together at a Miami nightclub where they performed Nazi salutes while Kanye West's song
"Heil Hitler" played, sparking widespread backlash.
Since then, Clavicular has appeared to take a very different path. He says he has partnered with Jewish business associates, met with Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto to ask forgiveness for his past antisemitic conduct, and recently defended two Jewish men who were reportedly refused entry to a nightclub after being identified as Jewish, urging security to stop bothering them and let them in.
Clavicular also previously met with Rabbi Pinto, the same rabbi who once met with and blessed Kaney and most recently was spotted Jew Maxxing, eating cholent with Rabbi Yossi Farro and insisting that friends wearing kippahs be allowed into a club in Paris.
Why Entebbe wouldn't be celebrated today
DIN:On June 26, Rabbi Yair Hoffman published a column titled "Entebbe — Fifty Years Later – Some New Perspectives". In that column he finds some story that he says caused Idi Amin to turn on Israel and then he jumps through halachic hoops to justify the rescue, he ultimately arrives at the obvious conclusion that "the rescuers were true heroes!!" But first, instead of just sticking to the miraculous amazing rescue, he needs to dig up a story to bad mouth the Generals of the IDF! Unbelievable!
I am baffled, how low have we sunk that this even needs to be debated?
I saw comments — now deleted — from several Yeshivishe guys claiming that the IDF “should not have done the rescue because al pi halacha you cannot endanger rescuers to save hostages.” Of course, had the hostage been their mother, sister, or child, they would have suddenly discovered a different halacha obligating the rescue. Funny how flexible some people’s “principles” become when the situation is personal.
The reason that Rabbi Hoffman had that column to begin with is because he caters to these Yeshivishe guys that couldn't in their wild imagination give Hakoras Hatoiv to the Zionists! If it were a bunch of Satmar Chassidim that had carried out that rescue then Rabbi Hoffman would never have even written that article! They refuse to acknowledge that it is in fact the Zionists that would do anything in the world to rescue a Jew in need! I had a classmate who was a hostage and when he returned he made a huge Seudas Hoidah with many prominent Gedoilim attending and he was of course praising the IDF and it wasn't an issue, but in today's world where hating Zionists is now the norm in the Yeshivishe bubble, they need to search for a heter and reluctantly say that the "Rescuers (Rav Hoffman couldn't bring himself to say IDF) were heroes"
Article below by Leo Pearlman
July 4th marked the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most extraordinary military operations in modern history.
On 4th July 1976, Israeli commandos flew more than 2,500 miles into Uganda, stormed Entebbe Airport and rescued more than one hundred hostages in an operation so audacious that it has become the benchmark against which every hostage rescue mission since has been measured.
The anniversary made me wonder something. Not whether Israel could still carry out such an operation, but whether the world would still celebrate it. Would newspapers celebrate Israel’s courage? Would governments praise its resolve? Would commentators still describe it as a triumph of good over evil?
Then I realised we don’t need to wonder, because almost fifty years later, Israel carried out another extraordinary hostage rescue operation. This time it wasn’t Entebbe, it was Nuseirat and in the difference between those two moments lies a story not only about Israel, but about us.
Before going any further, it’s worth acknowledging something that should not need saying.
Israel is not perfect, no democracy is. Like every democratic nation, it has elected governments that have made mistakes, pursued policies worthy of criticism and produced leaders whose words and actions many people. including many Israelis, have opposed. Recent years have provided no shortage of examples.
But that isn’t what this essay is about. If the difference between Entebbe and Nuseirat can simply be explained by disagreement with one Israeli government, then we learn nothing. Democracies change governments, but if our moral principles change every time they do, they were never principles at all.
What changed over those fifty years was something much deeper. It was the moral framework through which the Jewish state came to be judged.
The hijacking of Air France Flight 139 began like countless acts of terrorism before it. Armed terrorists seized a civilian aircraft and diverted it to Uganda, where they were welcomed by Idi Amin’s regime.
Once on the ground, something happened that sent a chill through Jewish communities around the world. The passengers were separated, the Jewish and Israeli hostages were kept, most of the others were released.
Barely three decades after the Holocaust, Jews once again found themselves being selected by armed men. Israel refused to accept it.
Monday, July 6, 2026
Marc Kasowitz Lawyer for Columbia University’s Jewish students netted $6.4M payday while preying on own client
A high-profile lawyer who became one of the nation’s most prominent advocates for Jewish college students after Oct. 7 netted a whopping $6.4 million payday from a settlement with Columbia University — by preying on his own clients, a shocking new lawsuit claims.
Marc Kasowitz’s firm had represented 43 Jewish and Israeli students who alleged Columbia failed to protect them during the violent anti-Israel protests and encampments that engulfed the Ivy League campus in Manhattan after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel.
The plaintiffs said that at first, they were thrilled to be repped by Kasowitz, a veteran Manhattan litigator who was the legal face of a national campaign against campus antisemitism.
Attorney Marc Kasowitz’s law firm preyed on the Columbia University students it represented in the aftermath of antisemitic protests on campus, according to a lawsuit.
Two-month-old infant dies in Beit Shemesh
A two-month-old baby girl was found unconscious this afternoon (Monday) in a residential building in Beit Shemesh.
Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedics and EMTs provided her with medical treatment and evacuated her in critical condition to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, where doctors pronounced her dead.
According to testimonies, the baby’s older sister slept with her in the same bed and apparently unintentionally pressed on her. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation.
The police said that officers from the Beit Shemesh station who arrived at the scene opened an investigation and began collecting evidence to clarify the circumstances of the death.
MDA said that upon arrival at the scene, the infant was brought to the teams unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing. The teams began advanced resuscitation efforts, including chest compressions and ventilation.
MDA emergency medic Rafael Tolidano said: “When we arrived at the building, they brought us the baby who was unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing."
He added: “We began advanced resuscitation procedures, including compressions and ventilation, and evacuated her in an intensive care ambulance to the hospital, with her condition defined as critical."
Education Ministry mandates tefillin access in state schools
The Education Ministry on Monday published, for the first time, an official director-general's circular establishing a nationwide policy on the laying of tefillin (phylacteries) in state schools.
The directive, formulated following a comprehensive professional review, is intended to replace the varying interpretations adopted by individual school principals, which in recent years have led to disputes and misunderstandings with students and parents.
Under the new guidelines, principals of state schools will be required to allow students who wish to do so to lay tefillin on school grounds.
To this end, each school is required to establish a clear internal policy to be incorporated into its official regulations. The policy must designate a respectful location for the practice and set specific times for it. The circular emphasizes that tefillin may only be laid during school breaks and not at the expense of class hours.
The directive also makes clear that the logistical responsibility for bringing the tefillin, as well as for attending classes and arriving on time, rests solely with the students. The Education Ministry recommends that principals implement the new policy parallel to holding early dialogue with teaching staff, parents' committees, and student councils to prevent conflicts and preserve the school's educational environment.
"Laying tefillin in the Jewish state should not be a matter of controversy or local interpretation," Education Minister Yoav Kisch said following the publication of the guidelines.
"The lack of clear regulations over the years created friction and uncertainty that harmed students, parents, and school administrations. This policy directive brings order: it provides principals with clear rules and ensures that every student who wishes to do so may pray and lay tefillin in a respectful, organized, and natural manner."
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