Friday, February 21, 2025
Agam found Rabbi Druckman's Sefer in Gaza
Released hostage Agam Berger, who was kidnapped from the IDF base at Nahal Oz, said that she read Rabbi Haim Druckman's book on Jewish law, she understood that she was permitted to eat non-kosher meat in a case of life and death.
The book was printed and distributed by Bnei Akiva yeshivas and girls' high schools, and one copy was accidentally forgotten in a building after the soldiers left, and reached Agam's hands.
Elhanan Glatt, CEO of the Bnei Akiva Yeshivot and Ulpanot Center who himself distributed hundreds of books at a conference, wrote emotionally to the management team: "Rabbi Druckman, there is a reward for your work, and they returned from an enemy land. We sought to plant the spirit and light of Rabbi [Druckman] in the soldiers a moment before the ground operation."
Yaniv Sufan, director of the "Hinenu" initiative to continue Rabbi Druckman's legacy, said, "It is so moving that the booklets from Rabbi Druckman, of blessed memory, reached the soldiers who needed them more than anything - the lookouts."
"There is nothing that symbolizes the booklet's name, 'With Strength and With Spirit,' more than Agam's spirit of greatness, which we have been revealed since her return."
Hamas Playing Cruel Games and Have Not Sent Back Body of Shiri Bibas!
Based on intelligence and forensic findings, professional assessments indicate that Ariel and Kfir Bibas were brutally murdered in captivity by terrorists in November 2023.
Additionally, the third body received was not that of Shiri Bibas and does not match any other known hostage. It remains unidentified.
This is a severe violation by Hamas, which was obligated under the agreement to return four fallen hostages. We demand that Hamas return Shiri Bibas along with all remaining hostages.
Ariel Bibas, four years old, and Kfir Bibas, ten months old, were kidnapped alongside their mother, Shiri, from their home in Nir Oz. Their father, Yarden Bibas, was taken earlier while trying to protect them. Yarden was returned as part of the hostage release
Yad Hashem : Massive attack averted: Bombs found on five buses in central Israel
הנה לא ינום ולא יישן שומר ישראל
These bombs were supposed to go off at 9:am in the morning when hundreds of people would have been on the bus, but instead Hashem intervened and they set it at 9:00 PM when most buses are empty
_Summary of the Terror Incident in Bat Yam and Holon – Four Explosive Devices Planted on Buses_
At approximately 20:15 today, a report was received about an explosion on a bus at a bus depot in Bat Yam. Shortly after, additional reports came in regarding another bus explosion at the same location.
Large police forces arrived at the scene, secured the area, and began searching for suspects.
Further reports were received about another explosion on a bus in Holon, along with an additional explosive device found there. Several other suspicious objects were examined by bomb disposal units and were determined not to be threats.
Police forces and emergency response teams are deployed across Bat Yam and Holon. Bomb disposal experts are handling the detected explosives, and all buses are being thoroughly inspected to rule out any additional threats.
The Police Commissioner and the Tel Aviv District Commander conducted a situational assessment at the scene. The district commander has instructed security forces to increase their presence in crowded areas.
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| The suspect |
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Their Time Is Up ...
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| Innocent Gazan Children Celebrating the Dead Bodies |
Grief means little. Rage matters even less. All that we have now are the cold, unfeeling facts:
Kfir Bibas, the baby smiling sweetly at us in the photograph, holding his pink elephant, was taken violently from his home, together with his mother Shiri and his four-year-old brother, Ariel. They were held in Gaza and eventually murdered.
We may never know the details of their ordeal, but we know plenty about their tormentors.
For nearly eighteen months, we’ve been collecting forensic evidence about the specimens who live in Gaza. What do we know about them? The question matters. A lot. In fact, no other does, particularly as Israel and the United States are trying to ascertain how to proceed now that the first round of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas is nearing its end.
What do we know, then?
We know the numbers:
A large-scale survey of Gazans, conducted by researchers from Oxford University and published in Foreign Affairs just last week, showed that whereas only 36% of Gazans supported Hamas prior to October 7, 2023, the number spiked to well over a half in March 2024, and began to decline only when Israel successfully eliminated Yahya Sinwar in October of last year.
Which should come as no surprise considering the fact that 98% of those surveyed described themselves as religious, and nearly as many said they saw the conflict with Israel in religious, not political terms: The Jews were usurpers who must be banished.
How? When asked, 47% said they wanted to see Israel destroyed and replaced with a strict Islamic state governed by Sharia law, and 20% said they would settle merely for the forced removal of all Jews and their transfer to wherever it was their ancestors had lived prior to immigrating to Israel. The moderates, 17% of them, said they would be alright merely with embracing the Palestinian right of return, a kinder, gentler way to end the Jewish state.
And we know the stories:
Many of the Israeli hostages who return tell variations of the same tale, of being held captive by ordinary families, abused and tormented not by bearded zealots with guns but by mothers and fathers and daughters and sons. Liri Albag, for example, the brave IDF soldier who was released in January, was enslaved by one such family, which did not allow her to shower for 37 days and, witnessing her growing faint with hunger, ridiculed her and refused to let her eat any of the food she was forced to cook for her captors.
Such gleeful cruelty has no parallel in the civilized world. Sure, war is hell, and combat rarely concludes without a handful of shocking aberrations. A soldier may crack and do the unthinkable. A rocket might miss its mark, snuffing out innocent lives. That is all too regrettable, and all but unavoidable. But that is not what is happening in Gaza. The footage of a dead Jewish baby returning home to Israel for burial compels us to tell the truth: The assertion that most, or even many, Gazans are innocents hijacked by their tyrannical leaders is a polite fiction. There are certainly some somewhere in the strip, the very young and the very frail included, who neither partook in nor condone the atrocities of the past 18 months, but they should no more redeem Gaza’s genocidal enterprise than the hypothetical ten good men of Sodom and Gomorrah could the cities of the plain.
Like Abraham, our shared Patriarch, we, too, struggled to find the righteous among the wicked. We hoped that the Palestinians of Gaza will show something of the courage we had seen in Syria, Tunisia, or Libya and stand up to their maniacal overlords. No protest materialized, and support for the tyrants grew the more adept they proved at slaughtering the Jews. We hoped for a Palestinian Oskar Schindler, one righteous man or woman who would stand up to Hamas as righteous men and women stood up to the far mightier Nazis and say that no cause or ideology justified the brutal murder of an infant. None came forth. We offered large monetary rewards and safe passage to anyone delivering any information about our hostages; hatred spoke louder than self-interest and cash. Israel’s neighbors to the south had all the opportunities anyone could reasonably ask for to resist, repent, and recalculate course. And at every turn, they returned to the singular idea that gives them life and meaning: Kill the Jews, all of them, gleefully.
If we didn’t understand all of this before, we ought to now that we are burying two dead children. And the lesson we must learn is simple. It comes down to one word: enough.
Enough with the sophistry about international laws and human rights. The crucibles in which these ideas were forged, raging with the fires of century-old conflicts, have now cooled down and crumbled. To pretend as if we must now take seriously a torrent of treaties long after the framework guaranteeing their efficacy—if such a framework ever existed in earnest—is sheer lunacy. We’ve seen the United Nations. We’ve seen the International Court of Justice. We’ve seen the Red Cross. To take any of these decrepit and callous concubines of evildoers seriously is not an option any morally or intellectually serious person should ever entertain.
Enough also with the insufferable ululations about Jewish morality and its arc which somehow always bends towards having mercy on the monsters who devour our children. As my dear friend and teacher Rabbi Meir Soloveichik noted in a celebrated article more than two decades ago, hate, too, is a Jewish virtue. The very next holiday on the Jewish calendar, in fact, Purim, is a celebration of the time, long ago, when Jews arose and dispensed with 75,000 of their pursuers, realizing that justice meant not only reversing Haman’s evil decree but forcing all those who were only too eager to partake in the slaughter to face the consequences of their actions. Like them, we, too, are fighting millions of little Hamans, murderous marauders who will grow emboldened the more we offer them mercy.
Which brings us back to earth, to the realm of the real, the practical, and the political. President Trump’s proposal to empty Gaza of its inhabitants is, if we’re honest, more merciful than any Gazan deserves, offering the savages who heard Kfir Bibas sob without showing a shred of basic human decency the one thing that precious baby will never have—a chance of a good and peaceful life elsewhere. Nevertheless, we must embrace this proposal, because at its heart is the one true and inescapable sentiment: Israelis can no longer be expected to live in proximity to those who desire nothing more than their death.
Negotiating with some other Palestinian group won’t do:
The PLO, the PFLP, et al are merely a different shade of murderous. Nor is there much value to the fantasy that the same patient reeducation that cleansed so many Germans of the Nazi inflammation might work in Gaza, too. Gazans aren’t, as some Pollyannish accounts would have us believe, long-suffering innocents who had the misfortune of living through decades of Hamas indoctrination; they’re faithful adherents of a stern interpretation of a still-young religion who believe there is glory in putting the enemies of God to the sword. We can, and should, respect their fierce heart. We can, and must, insist that their hands be nowhere near our necks.
Sadly, Israel is showing a growing lack of resolve which is no longer possible to ignore or explain away as some clever bit of tactical genius. Is it possible that Bibi Netanyahu is playing a very long game of five-dimensional chess with the world, holding out on the real prize, which is smiting the regime in Iran? Maybe! But meanwhile, closer to home, nothing is done. A few days ago, a very wise friend wrote to share this startling thought: for the past 18 months, we’ve all listened to Israel’s best and brightest, including Netanyahu himself, go on the sort of podcasts beloved by the self-appointed best and brightest of the American Jewish community, saying that if only they had the proper American support, they would’ve waged a very different war against Hamas.
Now, American support is manifest. Now, an American president possessing uncommon moral clarity and candor is advocating for the opening of the gates of hell. And rather than live up to a year of tough talk, Israel equivocates, looking weak, wounded, and confused. Those exploding beepers were a marvel. The killing of Nasrallah was a thing of beauty. But you don’t win wars and secure the peace with a sprinkling of daring commando acts or a dash of excellent air raids. You win wars and secure the peace by making your enemy realize that they had lost, and in the Middle East, as anyone who has ever consulted a history book could tell you, that means only one thing: seizing land.
Israel, then, must annex Judea and Samaria right now, if only to appear as certain of its right to its ancestral homeland as, say, Senator Tom Cotton. It must enthusiastically advocate for Trump’s plan, or some other arrangement that leaves Gaza empty of Gazans. It must take one long look at Kfir Bibas’ coffin and realize precisely what happens when evil is met with too many clever arguments and not enough swift deeds.
Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and the host of its weekly podcast, Rootless, and its daily Talmud podcast Take One.
From Celebrating the Massacre to Applauding Coffins – The Reality in Gaza
Watch them clapping, bringing their children to witness the spectacle, recording on their phones as souvenirs—these are the same Gazans the world pities and supports.
There is no difference between them and Hamas terrorists.
"Hatikvah" and Cries of "Forgive Us" as Fallen Hostages' Coffins Arrive in Abu Kabir
As the convoy carrying the fallen hostages' remains reached Abu Kabir, citizens stood in mourning, singing "Hatikvah" and calling out "Forgive us", honoring their memory with deep sorrow and respect.
A police convoy transported the bodies of four Israeli hostages, murdered in Hamas captivity, from Gaza to Israel for official identification ahead of their proper burial. As the convoy passed, Israeli police officers honored them with a show of respect. The families will be informed after identification and have requested the public to await official confirmation
"זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה לְךָ עֲמָלֵק"
Argentina to Declare National Day of Mourning for Slain Bibas Family
This gesture reflects the country’s solidarity and sympathy towards the victims and their loved ones.
Breaking: President Trump Reportedly Calls for Gaza to Be Wiped Out After Return of Bibas Bodies
Trump allegedly told advisors he wants Gaza “wiped out” with no buildings left, per Channel 14, after Hamas released the Bibas family’s remains amid ceasefire tensions.
2 NYC yeshivas are not meeting standards and must effectively close, state rules
The New York State Education Department is cutting off public funding to two Brooklyn yeshivas and ordering parents to find alternative educational arrangements for their children next year, citing the schools' failure to meet secular education standards.
It’s the most significant set of consequences faced by any school in the ongoing fight between education officials and Haredi institutions in New York over laws requiring that yeshivas, like all schools, meet standards in core subjects like English and math. After years of battles in court, the halls of government and the public square, this is the first time the state has effectively closed a Hasidic school.
The two yeshivas are in Williamsburg, the center of the city’s Satmar Hasidic community. They are Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, which runs schools in two locations for different age groups, and Talmud Torah of Kasho. They were notified of the enforcement decisions on February 11 after ignoring final warnings issued in December, according to the education department.
Trump signs executive order cutting all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal immigrants
Watch Rockland County Legislator Aron Weider welcome illegals with big smile on his face!
President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday night barring illegal immigrants from receiving federally-funded benefits.
“My Administration will uphold the rule of law, defend against the waste of hard-earned taxpayer resources, and protect benefits for American citizens in need, including individuals with disabilities and veterans,” read the text of Trump’s order.
The president noted that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) ostensibly prohibits illegal immigrants from obtaining most taxpayer-funded benefits, but he argued that in the decades since its passage “numerous administrations have acted to undermine the principles and limitations directed by the Congress.”
Trump claimed that the Biden administration “repeatedly undercut the goals of that law, resulting in the improper expenditure of significant taxpayer resources.”
As a result, “taxpayer resources” have acted as a “magnet” for migrants, “fueling illegal immigration to the United States,” according to the president.
Trump’s order directs the head of every federal agency to “ identify all federally funded programs administered by the agency that currently permit illegal aliens to obtain any cash or non-cash public benefit” and “take all appropriate actions to align such programs” with PRWORA and other federal laws.
The commander-in-chief further ordered government officials to “ensure, consistent with applicable law, that Federal payments to States and localities do not, by design or effect, facilitate the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration, or abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
Trump’s executive order also asked federal agencies to “enhance eligibility verification systems, to the maximum extent possible” in an effort to exclude illegal immigrants from taxpayer-funded benefits.
The president tasked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk, with identifying “all other sources of Federal funding for illegal aliens” and recommending “additional agency actions to align Federal spending with the purposes of this order.”
The order demands that agencies refer any improper benefits going to illegal immigrants to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security for “appropriate action.”
The move is part of the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, one of Trump’s key campaign promises.
The president has lauded Musk and DOGE for helping implement several of his executive orders that he argued would’ve been ignored by federal workers without the bureaucracy-cutting team in place.
IDF KNOW WHO KIDNAPPED BIBAS' BUT CANT DO ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY ARE "CIVILIANS"
We now know who these barbarians are. The Israel Defense Forces positively identified the kidnappers of the Bibas family. They still live in Gaza.
And though Israel vowed to hunt down each and every one of the participants in the massacre, it is not targeting the Bibas abductors—because Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has defined them as “citizens,” not combatants, and so has vetoed targeting them. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi accepted the dictum and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant acquiesced. And so the tormentors of Shiri Bibas and her children are alive and well. The matter was first exposed by Amit Segal on Channel 12 News earlier this year, but nothing has changed since then.
How did we arrive at this madness?
Delta CEO stuns Gayle King declining to blame Trump for plane crashes.
Delta CEO stuns Gayle King when he declined to blame Trump for plane crashes.
"The Trump administration has committed to investing deeply in terms of improving air traffic control systems."
Rabbi Abergel: Draft haredim who are not studying Torah ..
Rabbi Haim Yosef David Abergel, head of a large community based in the southern city of Netivot, has spoken out against Shas party rabbis, calling on haredim who are not seriously studying Torah full-time to enlist in the IDF's new Hashmonaim unit, which he called "a place which is protected."
Kan News quoted Rabbi Abergel as saying: "I seek my brother - not to make any quarrels, G-d forbid, no jealousy, no hatred. To spread the Name of Heaven, even within the army, with G-d's help. To remember the difficult, horrific, terrible day that we had on Simchat Torah (October 7 -ed.). Then, out of this great pain, all of us were united. Now [let us unite], not out of pain - with joy."
"Hear the words of Rabbi Shach, of Rabbi Yissachar Meir. My righteous rabbis, whoever learns - will learn. Whoever is not learning should enlist in a haredi place, a protected place, a good place. There is the Hashmonaim Brigade, a more protected space than the protected spaces."
He added,"No one who is learning Torah, obviously, will leave his books, but the people who are anyways going out to work will be in a place that allows Torah learners to continue learning and will also truly protect all of Israel."
He also praised the enormous efforts invested in creating haredi frameworks, including tens of millions of NIS invested in creating a haredi brigade.
Chareidie Gangsters from Meah Shearim Cause Riot while being "mevazeh" the Stoliner Rebbe Because He is all for Enlisting
Jerusalem witnessed a despicable Chutzpah on Wednesday when violent extremists attacked the vehicle of the Karlin-Stoliner Rebbe with teargas as he departed from a Sheva Brachos for his granddaughter. People should not remain silent when violent thugs attack one of the leading Admorim in Klal Yisroel.
The confrontation occurred in the Mea Shearim neighborhood, where a group of extremists blocked the Rebbe’s vehicle on Ezra Street. They shouted insults at him, accusing him of encouraging Charedi enlistment in the IDF. This enraged members of the Karlin community, including overseas guests, leading to a violent brawl.
“It was a shocking scene,” an eyewitness reported. “A group of extremists just blocked the Rebbe and began to spray teargas at the car. The Chassidim didn’t stand by.”
The tensions have been escalating for some time. Extremists have been targeting the Rebbe, disrupting his gatherings and events. Last Chanukah, they attempted to interfere with a Tish on Avinoam Yellin Street.
On the previous Shabbos, as the Rebbe celebrated Sheva Brachos for his granddaughter, extremists protested outside his home on Ezra Street. At Wednesday’s final Sheva Brachot in the Karlin-Stolin study hall, tensions flared when extremists blocked the Rebbe’s vehicle and hurled insults. This provoked Chassidim who tried to push them away, leading to a violent altercation that shocked onlookers.
One Chosid described the incident:
“For over an hour and a half, they stood outside yelling insults and curses at the Rebbe, calling him by name in loud voices. Everyone ignored them. But when the Rebbe left, they escalated, shoving and lying down in front of the car to prevent him from leaving. That’s when some of our people decided to remove them by force.”
The Hamas Baby Killers and a Broken Global Moral Compass
As much as anything else, two little red-haired boys and their mother symbolized the barbaric cruelty of the Hamas assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The video of a terrified Shiri Bibas, 32, clutching and comforting her two children—Ariel, 4, and Kfir, just 9 months old at the time—as they were being pushed away by Hamas terrorists into captivity in Gaza should haunt the conscience of humanity in much the same way as some of the most iconic images of the Holocaust.
But it did not. Or at least, it didn’t do so sufficiently to prevent a sizable portion of the international community from thinking of their captors as the good guys in the war that the Palestinians started on Oct. 7. Now, 500 days after that infamous and tragic date, as their fate has been revealed, we are also being forced to come to terms with the extent of the moral failure of the world to respond appropriately to this brazen act of genocidal terrorism.
Congestion Pricing Dead!! Long Live the King!! Hochol Going Crazy in a rant!
The Trump administration has moved to revoke federal approval for congestion pricing, making good on a campaign promise to kill the tolls that since Jan. 5 have charged drivers a $9 daytime fee to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.
Watch Gov. Hochul go Bat-Crazy!
”They Betrayed Him”: Wife of Oded Lifshitz the Lover of Palestinians
”They Betrayed Him”: Wife of Oded Lifshitz Speaks as His Body Returns to Israel Alongside Bibas Family*
The body of 84-year-old hostage Oded Lifshitz will be returned to Israel today, alongside Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas.
A journalist and peace activist, Oded was one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz. He dedicated his life to helping others, including transporting sick Gazans to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
His wife, Yocheved Lifshitz, 82, was also kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 but was later released. Heartbroken by his death, she expressed her deep sense of betrayal:
“Oded was a huge fighter for peace [between Israel and the Palestinians.] He had very good relationships with the Palestinians, and one of the things that hurts me most is that they betrayed him. They took him to hell, even after he fought for them his entire life.”
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Released for Publication: The four fallen hostages expected to be returned tomorrow ..Shiri Bibas with her 2 children were murdered
הַרְנִינוּ גוֹיִם עַמּוֹ כִּי דַם עֲבָדָיו יִקּוֹם וְנָקָם יָשִׁיב לְצָרָיו וְכִפֶּר אַדְמָתוֹ עַמּוֹ.
Shared with the approval of the families.
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